Video: Garry Fabian Miller

GARRY FABIAN MILLER: If we look at art and I do look at art there is art that speaks to me and art that does not speak to me.

First of all one has to be interested visually, and then with a lot of art nowdays, you need to know the background.

The house here is now a museum and it says such a lot about Fox Talbot's life and if you look around today you can understand everything he himself developed and tried out. You really could believe that Talbot had just been working here.

An important aspect of my work was more conditioned by the medium itself: I carried the photogram out of the laboratory, that is out of the studio, and took it to the objects. And the very first photo I made outside the studio, the first photogram, was of this window.

I don't particularly consider myself to be a pioneer, I use this technique because I find it to be a medium that is suitable for purpose, and because, and this is the important thing, I am interested in what they used to do with this technique before my time, which is why we are sitting here today.

A very important aspect of a photogram is this contact, how do I put it…a photogram is not a reproduced print, it is a contact picture. You sense that the object was originally in contact with the picture.

The question is, and this possible with photograms, how to get away from the purely documentary aspect and make a picture of the window about the window.

Thu 09 July 2015–Sun 03 January 2016

DISPLAY: This display will reveal the diversity of performance design over the last four years and feature work that defines the edges of this global art-form. It will include designs across disciplines – from opera, dance, theatre, to pop music– and across contexts and platforms.

Selling Silks: A Merchant's Sample Book (Hardback)

Discover the many treasures in the beautiful V&A galleries, find out where events are happening in the Museum or just check the location of the café, shops, lifts or toilets. Simple to use, the V&A interactive map works on all screen sizes, from your tablet or smartphone to your desktop at home.